


No Complaints

by waxing_gibbous



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 04:21:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18865603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waxing_gibbous/pseuds/waxing_gibbous
Summary: Jared and Richard go to a Renaissance fair.





	No Complaints

Jared has absolutely no complaints. Everything is perfect. He is Richard’s and Richard is his and it’s the happiest surprise of his life.

The other happy surprises are as follows:

Richard wanting to go public. The turnaround was positively staggering. One minute they were making out on Richard’s bunk bed and confessing their love; the next minute, Richard was marching out to the workspace and announcing their relationship to everyone in the hostel. Richard, always so insecure in his professional life—all the indecision, all the hemming and hawing, all the puking—is the opposite when it comes to romance. He wants ALL the romance and he wants it RIGHT NOW. He wants Jared and him to get married, he wants Jared and him to get a place of their own. He wants to nest. And of course Jared is thrilled and honored beyond endurance, but he can’t allow it. Not yet. He’s too scared. Their relationship, he’s explained to Richard nearly a dozen times now, is the most precious thing imaginable. He would rather die than ruin it, and the best way to keep it safe is to take it slow.

The other happy surprise is Richard in bed. It was Richard’s first time with a man, so Jared thought he would have to ease him into things, especially certain…anal things. But from the very first night they had sex, Richard was the opposite of skittish. He was ravenous. Remembering it now, Jared shivers in delight. He remembers how nervously, how gently he used his finger to circle Richard’s entrance. He remembers Richard freezing for a second, stalling out mid-kiss. Jared froze, too, ready to remove his finger and never return it to that region of Richard’s body ever again. But then, the miracle happened. Richard lifted his hips and shifted his ass down and back. He pushed himself toward Jared’s finger, not away. Encouraged and amazed, Jared dropped his head between Richard’s legs and used his tongue: diving into Richard, licking him, probing him, preparing him. Richard gasped and whined and pressed against Jared’s face. When Richard was wet and ready, Jared used his finger again, and then he used two. And when Richard wanted even more, he let Jared know. He actually asked for it. In words. Fuck me, please. That’s what he said. He actually said please. He repeated it once Jared was inside him and then chanted it with each thrust, and now Jared cannot use the word himself—Just a glass of water, please—without feeling wantonly sexual in even the least sexual circumstances.

Yes, Richard is good at asking for it. So, so good. He asks for blow jobs and hand jobs and rim jobs and the kind of fucking that makes him walk funny the next day. He asks for Jared’s cock in his mouth ten times a week, on average. The only thing he hasn’t asked for—and lord knows Jared is not complaining because there is literally nothing to complain about—is to be inside Jared. He hasn’t given Jared that one gift—that one priceless, extraordinarily intimate gift—and Jared doesn’t know why. It drives him crazy sometimes, imagining what it would be like. Imagining why it hasn’t happened yet. He’s lost a lot of sleep. 

But.

But everything else is so good. Everything else is so perfect. And Jared cannot imagine asking for anything that might change that.

###

“A Renaissance Fair?” Jared asks.

“Yes!” Richard replies. His eyes are wide with delight. “But not one of those amateur ones. At this one, you have to stay in character the whole time or else they kick you out!”

Jared has never seen Richard this excited outside of the bedroom before. He is bouncing on his toes like a little kid. He is clapping his hands.

“So we dress up like…the Renaissance?” Jared asks.

“Of course we dress up!”

“And is everyone assigned a character or…”

“No! You decide for yourself. That’s half the fun!”

“Well, then. I suppose I’d like to be a---”

“NO!”

Richard lunges at Jared and puts a hand on his mouth to silence him. It’s the kind of thing that will certainly lead to sex once Richard can get his mind off the Renaissance Fair. Richard will hold his hand over Jared’s mouth as Jared jerks himself off. Jared will lick Richard’s palm and moan into it as he comes.

“No,” Richard repeats. “Don’t tell me. I want your character to be a surprise.”

###

It’s harder than Jared thinks it will be. All the costumes look ridiculous on him.

At first, because he is a naturally servile person, he tries for something like a squire or a page boy, but his tallness makes such submissive roles look absurd.

Then he tries for something that better suits his height. He puts on the robes and crown of a king and nearly laughs when he looks in the mirror. He might be tall, but he is not commanding. Not in the least.

Then, because it is now the morning of the fair and he is desperate, he decides to mix and match. The squire’s tunic, the page boy’s breeches, the king’s robe. He’s trying for a prince, but not the bellicose, heroic kind of prince. He’s thinking of Hamlet, but not as sadistic. He’s thinking of a studious, borderline effeminate monarch who roams the castle silently and unobtrusively, like a benevolent ghost. 

His prince costume complete, he looks in the mirror and is amazed to find that, for once, he likes what he sees.

###

“Are you ready?” Richard shouts from his bedroom.

Jared is standing in the living room, in the prince costume.

“Yes,” Jared replies. 

He is restlessly, deliciously anxious for Richard to reveal himself. When Richard emerges from his room, Jared’s entire body lights up. He doesn’t know what Richard is supposed to be, but he looks marvelous. He’s wearing some kind of brown leather apron with no shirt under it. His arms and chest are not particularly muscular, but they are wiry and well-defined and beautifully, lick-ably pale. His breeches appear to be made from something coarse and scratchy. He holds iron tongs in one hand and an iron hammer in the other.

“You’re a…dream come true,” Jared guesses.

“No! I’m a blacksmith!”

Jared exhales. A blacksmith! Of course! Hence the black smudges on his hands and forearms, hence the dirty, unkempt condition of his hair. This, Jared realizes with an affectionate thrill, is Richard’s version of macho.

“You’re a prince!” Richard smiles. “And you look gorgeous.”

###

The Renaissance Fair takes place on the grounds of the local public high school. It’s the sort of Renaissance Fair that gives Renaissance Fairs a bad name. To Richard, however, it’s Camelot. He prances through the entrance and throws his arms wide and spins around to take it all in.

Jared is baffled. From where they are standing, they can see the strip mall across the highway. Someone in the parking lot is playing Cardi B at full volume. The tackling pads from football practice still sit in the middle of the field among all the faux-rustic marketplace stalls. Everyone seems to be drinking Diet Sprite. It’s the most amateur, least authentic thing Jared has ever seen. But it makes Richard so happy. All the stress of running Pied Piper has melted away. He is clear-eyed and full of energy and hope, and Jared wants to taste his happiness. He wants to swallow Richard whole, blacksmith tongs and all. 

“All right,” Richard says. “Time to find our people!”

“Our people? You’re my people, Richard.”

“Yes, yes, I know. But at the Fair, you have to find your equals. I go with the other blacksmiths. You go with the other royals. It’s part of the game.”

Jared’s heart sinks, but he doesn’t want to disappoint Richard by showing it. So he smiles and waves amiably as Richard disappears in the direction of the marketplace. There is something that looks like a dais near one of the goalposts. The people on it are wearing crowns. Jared approaches the other royals and bows.

“Good morrow,” he says. “I am the prince.”

“The prince of what?” a tall, angular-looking woman asks.

“The prince of…” 

Jared is stuck. On their way to the fair, Richard didn’t ask Jared for his full royal title—he kept referring to Jared as my liege and my lord and my prince—so Jared didn’t think to invent one. After all, if it isn’t done for Richard’s benefit, it isn’t worth doing.

“I don’t know,” Jared admits.

The tall woman looks him over. Jared inspects her, too. She’s not really a woman, he realizes belatedly. She’s a man in impeccable make-up and clever tailoring. How marvelous! Jared smiles at her. She smiles back at him with big, white teeth and then touches Jared on each shoulder with her scepter.

“I hereby dub thee Prince Grandon of Brockshire.”

“Thank you, my lady,” Jared says, bowing his head. “And you are…?”

“Princess Elyse of Turndale.”

“Princess Elyse,” Jared confirms.

“I like your outfit,” she replies in a conspiratorial whisper.

“I like yours, too,” he whispers in reply.

“You can borrow it sometime. You’d look fucking fabulous in it.”

She winks at Jared. She’s flirting, Jared realizes with alarm.

“I’m so…flattered,” he says, blushing. “But I’m here with my boyfriend.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m just having some fun. That’s my wife, right over there.”

She points to a small, squat woman dressed as Henry the Eighth. Henry waves at them. Something in Jared’s heart warms and swells.

“We do this every year,” the woman tells him. “At first, I wasn’t too sure about it, but now I just love it. There’s something about the insane fantasy of it all. Something about the new power dynamic that…I don’t know. It frees me up to do things I’d never do in real life. And it makes the sex amazing.”

“Amazing,” Jared repeats, craning his neck to search for Richard in the crowd below.

###

There is an order of events. Once everyone finds their peers, the trumpet sounds and the royals begin their procession through the marketplace. 

Jared follows behind Princess Elyse and King Henry. Now that he’s down on the field again, in the middle of the action, it’s easier to let his imagination take over. It’s easier to see the appeal. The costumes are truly extraordinary, created with an attention to detail that satisfies him on a primal level. Everyone seems joyful and at ease. Everyone is respectful and deferent to him and his fellow monarchs in a way that he knows is pretend but seems very real. 

And then there’s what Elyse mentioned earlier: the power dynamics, the freedom, the prospect of amazing sex. The hierarchy between him and Richard, Jared realizes with a thrill, has been reversed today. Jared is no longer the assistant, the supplicant. Instead, he’s a prince, the next in line to the throne. Richard is no longer the CEO, the one in charge. He is a lowly blacksmith who, according to the laws of the kingdom, serves at the royal family’s command. There are possibilities here. Significant possibilities. As Jared roams through the vendors’ stalls, the serfs and merchants genuflecting as he passes by, he can imagine issuing a previously unthinkable demand. Fuck me, he would say to that pretty little blacksmith. And because he’s the prince, he wouldn’t say please.

###

By the time he reaches the blacksmiths’ stall, Jared is shaky with anticipation. It’s been nearly two hours since he’s seen Richard, and Richard seems to have grown even more beautiful in the interim. Jared watches him for a minute or two before approaching. One of the other blacksmiths—a burly man with all the muscles Richard lacks—is showing Richard how to heat the steel, pound it, and cool it. When it’s Richard’s turn, Jared expects to see him fumble a little, like he usually does with most things on the material plane. But his execution is perfect. What he lacks in brute strength, he makes up for in precision. He hammers the red-hot metal with the focus he normally reserves for a thorny sequence of code. The veins stand out in his arms and neck. He shines with fresh sweat. When he picks up the hammered metal with his tongs and plunges it into the basin of water, the steam that results is somehow both erotic and magical: like a fairy king’s ejaculation.

The burly blacksmith is thrilled with Richard’s accomplishment. He draws Richard into a bear hug, dwarfing Richard’s body. The jealousy Jared feels isn’t the sour, sad kind. It’s the sweet kind, the kind that’s heavy with adrenaline and focus.

“You, there,” Jared says. “Young blacksmith.”

Richard slips out of the other man’s embrace and turns to face Jared. Richard is speechless for a moment. Something about Jared has surprised him.

“Y-y-yes, my lord.” Richard bows deeply.

“What’s your name?” Jared asks. His voice is confident but not forceful, inquisitive but not entitled.

“Aerok,” Richard replies. He is not completely in character yet. There’s still a hint of wariness about him, a sense of shock as to Jared’s impressive transformation.

“A word with you privately, Aerok.” 

The other blacksmith backs away. Richard steps forward, his head still bowed.

“I’ve been watching you for some time,” Jared says. “And I’m interested in your…wares.”

“I make the best blades in the kingdom, my liege. If you’re in need of a weapon, I---”

“No, no,” Jared interrupts. “You misunderstand.”

Jared glances behind him. Elyse and Henry are within easy earshot. They are following his interaction with Richard very closely, and they are smiling ear to ear.

“I am Prince Grandon of Brockshire. Tonight, I am to be wed to Princess Elyse of…”

“Turndale,” Elyse stage-whispers.

“Turndale,” Jared repeats. “And while the union brings me much satisfaction, there are other….pleasures I would like to know before the bonds of marriage consume me.”

“My lord?”

Jared grabs Richard by the apron and drags him to the back of the blacksmiths’ stall. Here, they are hidden behind stacked bales of hay and several cases of Doritos.

“Jared, what---”

This time, Jared is the one to silence Richard. This time, it’s Jared’s hand over Richard’s mouth. A single flash of fear or dismay in Richard’s eyes, and Jared will end it all. He will remove his hand and beg forgiveness. But Richard’s eyes are wide and his pupils are big. Beneath Jared’s hand, Richard is smiling.

“Prince Grandon, you mean.”

Richard nods furiously. Jared removes his hand. He moves very close to Richard and begins to whisper into his ear.

“Ever since I was a boy, I’ve imagined it, Aerok. What does a maiden feel when her consort enters her? What is it like to feel…taken? What is it like to feel full?”

Jared doesn’t know where these words are coming from, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is Richard’s reaction. He chest is heaving beneath his apron and he’s biting his lower lip.

“It’s a delicate thing, I’d imagine,” Jared continues. “It would take a man with skill and talent to give me that sort of gift. And when I saw you working so diligently at your anvil, I knew…”

Jared runs his index finger along Richard’s jawline. Then he uses the same finger to pry Richard’s lower lip out from between his teeth. Richard sighs, closes his eyes, and sucks Jared’s finger into his mouth. As he sucks, he grabs Jared’s ass with both hands and begins to pull him apart.

It’s happening, Jared realizes, his heart pounding in his ears. It’s finally happening. He steps backward into a hay bale. Then, after making sure they are still hidden from the crowd, he turns around and drapes his upper half over the hay bale, his ass pointed upward in Richard’s direction.

He waits there, motionless and untouched, for what seems like forever. Then he looks over his shoulder at Richard.

Richard is looking at him with an absolutely unreadable expression on his face.

“My prince…” Richard says sadly.

Jared’s chest collapses.

“Oh, Aerok. I’ve been too forward. I’ve made you feel---”

“No, no. It’s not that. If my master, Thurgen, finds us he’ll whip me and send me away. I cannot lose this apprenticeship, sire. I cannot go back to begging on the streets.”

“You’re…afraid.”

“Yes.”

“I understand. I will leave you in peace.”

“Thank you, sire.”

Jared turns to go. The pit in his heart is dense and black. It was put there by Richard and only Richard can choose, or not choose, to take it away.

“But there might be another way…”

At the sound of Richard’s voice, Jared spins around so fast he nearly falls over.

“Yes?”

“After the revels tonight,” Richard explains, “when everyone is still feasting. Meet me back here under cover of darkness. Thurgen will be too drunk and merry to notice or care.”

###

The revels take place in the run-down high school gymnasium. 

To Jared, however, it feels like the grand banquet hall of a castle. An ancient castle on a windswept cliff, a castle precisely suited for a moody, lustful, tender prince like himself. He no longer sees the inaccuracies, the anachronisms, the historical inconsistencies. He doesn’t care if there are tattered basketball nets overhead. He doesn’t care than no one has thought to use real candles instead of battery-powered ones. He doesn’t care that what they’re calling mead is actually white zinfandel from a box. To him, it all seems completely magical. There is a trio of musicians playing ancient-sounding music on a lute, a fife, and a harp. At the far end of the hall, where the lowborn carouse and spar and beg for scraps, he can see Richard doing a darling, awkward little dance. The burly alpha-blacksmith—Thurgen, Jared supposes—is already drunk, just as Richard predicted. He is sitting on the lap of an equally burly dairy maid and they are making no secret of their intentions toward each other. 

Jared looks over at Elyse and Henry. They look back at him. 

“Are you ready, young prince?” Henry asks.

Jared nods.

“Let’s drive your young blacksmith mad with longing,” Elyse grins.

Jared takes a long, fortifying swig of mead. Henry rises to his feet and the crowd instantly falls silent. Elyse sidles up next to Jared and takes him by the arm. Jared is not one to sing his own praises, but he can tell they make a magnificent looking couple. Their height, their androgyny, their strange, straightforward calm. The crowd is awed by them, perhaps even envious, and a small, mean part of Jared hopes Richard feels envious, too. 

“We are gathered here tonight to celebrate the union of Princess Elyse of Turndale to Prince Grandon of Brockshire.”

The crowd grows wild. Jared has lost sight of Richard.

“Go ahead, young lovers! Seal your marriage with a kiss!”

When Elyse goes in for the kiss, she is no longer a woman. She is a man again. The way she holds Jared is man-like, the way she dominates Jared with her tongue is man-like. Jared enjoys it for a half-second. Then he thinks of Richard and panics.

He wrenches himself from the kiss.

“No!” he shouts. “No! I can’t!”

“What?” Elyse screeches. She’s hamming it up a little, but who cares.

“There’s another who owns my heart!”

The crowd gasps. Elyse pretends to faint. Jared runs out of the gymnasium and back onto the field. He gets a little bit lost among all the vendor stalls before finding the one he seeks. Richard, as promised, is in the very back, wringing his hands and pacing.

They look at each other for a long moment. If there were ever a time to break character, it would be right now. The situation has gotten so complex. Perhaps it’s better to just clear the air and head home. Perhaps Jared should just admit the abject foolishness of his plan. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know how to keep from ruining everything.

“My prince.” Richard’s voice breaks the silence. Jared nearly starts sobbing in relief. “I serve at your pleasure.”

“Remove your breeches, then.”

Jared’s voice is miraculously clear and strong. Richard forces back a smile. Richard unclothes himself from the waist down. Then he reaches back to untie the brown leather apron.

“No,” Jared says. “The apron stays on.”

Jared drops to his knees, pushes the apron aside, and puts his nose against Richard’s inner thigh. When he breathes in, he smells his entire universe.

“Tell me…tell me what you’re doing, my liege,” Richard stutters.

“I’m making you hard enough,” Jared replies, moving his cheek against Richard’s cock. “And wet enough to enter me.”

Richard whimpers. Jared swallows Richard’s cock in one gulp. Richard groans and put both hands in Jared’s hair. Is there anything worthier than this, Jared wonders? This feeling of Richard swelling and twitching in his mouth? This feeling of Richard’s cock pulsing on his tongue?

Jared fondles Richard’s balls. Richard tenses up and growls. Jared releases Richard’s cock from his mouth and stands. It’s a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful sight. Richard naked except for the apron. The apron pushed off to one side by Richard’s wet, red, throbbing erection. The distraught, needy look in Richard’s eyes.

“You’ve done this before?” Jared asks. “To a man?”

“Never, my lord.”

And by the way Richard reddens and lowers his gaze, Jared knows he’s telling the truth. All this time, Jared realizes suddenly, Richard was scared. He was scared of this one dangerous, mind-blowing, singular thing. He was scared of doing it wrong. He was scared he would ruin things. He was scared, just like Jared.

“Don’t worry,” Jared says. “You’ll do it so, so well.”

When Jared takes off his costume, he doesn’t mean to do it slowly. But his hands are shaking so hard that it’s impossible to do it quickly. The result, therefore, is a sort of strip tease and Richard loves it. By the time Jared is completely naked, Richard’s hesitance has disappeared. He throws himself at Jared and shoves Jared over the same hay bale as before.

“Tongue first, my lord?” Richard asks.

Jared cannot reply in words. All he can manage is a short, prayerful whine. Richard uses his hands to spread Jared open. Then he uses his tongue to circle and push. Richard’s beard is rough and his tongue is hot and soft and firm and hungry, and how will Jared manage this? How will he survive this without screaming or crying or passing the fuck out?

“Fingers, too, my sweet prince?” 

Richard grins and plucks a small bottle of lube from the pocket of his apron.

“Oh god,” Jared replies.

Richard is impatient now. He covers both hands with an obscene amount of lube. He uses one finger for only a couple thrusts, and then skips right to three. Is this heaven? Jared wonders. Is this gay nerd heaven?

When Richard removes his fingers, Jared can’t help but moan a little in disappointment. But when the fingers are replaced by the head of Richard’s cock, the moan turns into a howl. They can’t hear him in the gymnasium. The revels are too loud. So Jared feels free—for once—to let it all out. 

“Wait.” Richard stops. He stops halfway inside Jared. The pause is more than Jared can bear. “Am I hurting you?”

“No! Fuck me,” Jared demands. “Fuck me NOW.”

There’s an airborne moment that’s like a wave right before it breaks. He can hear Richard behind him, sucking in a staggered breath, lining himself up. And then it’s like Jared is being broken in two. It’s not a painful breaking, though. It’s juicy and revelatory and life-changing. He imagines splitting open a pomegranate and squeezing its glossy seeds in his fist. Jared’s cock seems to feel exactly what Richard’s cock is feeling. It’s almost like he’s penetrating himself. Is that even possible? To be on the receiving end and the giving end, all at once? To have your cake and fuck it, too?

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Richard moans, his words punctuating each thrust. “My prince, my prince, my prince.”

Jared reaches back to grab Richard’s hip and pull him deeper inside. There’s something clever he could probably say right now. Something in character, something aristocratic and erudite. But he’s no longer a prince who can say things, demand things. He’s no longer a person. He’s just a part of Richard, and Richard is just a part of him. 

There’s a feeling of floating away and crashing down. He doesn’t know he’s coming until he looks down, panting and depleted, to see ropes of his semen spilling onto the hay. Seconds later, Richard is screaming and falling across Jared’s back. For the next few minutes, Richard’s cock remains hard, beating inside Jared like a second heart. 

When they’ve finally extracted themselves from each other and are lying down side by side on the turf, Jared reaches for Richard’s hand.

“You could have told me you were scared,” Jared says. “I could’ve made you feel better.”

“You could have asked for what you wanted,” Richard replies. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t give you.”

Jared kisses Richard knuckles and puts Richard’s hand over his heart.

“Can I ask you something now?” Jared says.

Richard nods.

“There’s an apartment I found for us on Fifth and Ferguson. How soon can you move in?”


End file.
